Let's see, we have the dead zone underwater, starving birds, raw oysters making people sick at record levels, and now paralytic shellfish poisoning toxin at record levels. Yikes, what's an ocean lover to do? Backing off of shellfish is especially hard.

I'm told that most of these problems are unrelated, and not tied to human impacts. It's hard to believe that such a piling-on of problems is just an unhappy coincidence. I wonder what we'll think about all of this in 10 or 20 years. Looking back, will it be just a bad year or a sign of things to come? Regardless, I hope we see the need to get our house in order.

The make up period for killer whales consists of 6-10 minutes of synchronized side-by-side swimming. Killer whales now join primates as examples of animals with specific peacemaking behaviors.

Noonan thinks we can use killer whales to study the evolution of peacemaking in complex societies. Perhaps there are lessons here for us...is there a place for court-ordered synchronized swimming to help feuding people soothe and settle?

Thursday, August 17, 2006

This is the 9th year in a row that managers have perpetuated overfishing, and red snapper are now down to 3% of historic abundance.

In a classic example of declining expectations (shifting baselines), charter boat operator Ron Woodruff seems satisfied with 3%. He said "there's more fish out in this Gulf of Mexico than there were back in the 1980s." What, was it 2% in the 1980s?

Fishermen need to stand up for the future in the Gulf of Mexico, and demand an end to overfishing. Who else will do it?

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

It seemed that things couldn't get worse in the Klamath River--and then things got a LOT WORSE.

Toxic algae blooms are now a serious human health risk in the Klamath River, and serious harm could come from drinking just a few ounces of water accidentally while skiing or swimming. Much of the area looks unsafe, like a "radioactive putting green" according to an observer, but the toxin is stable in water for weeks and harmful levels of toxin could remain when the water looks fine.

Oh great, now the Klamath River system is toxic to people and not just to fish. Maybe this is what it takes to get serious attention on the problem. This ought to be enough to get serious attention, right? Blogfish will follow this story for you, since the algae mess goes nicely with the blogfish color scheme.

With all the bad news about ocean decline, creating some areas where fish can reproduce unmolested is a necessary step in ensuring there are fish in our future ocean. Even where declines are not caused by fishing, it's a good idea to let depleted fish populations have some refuge areas so they can do their best to survive global warming and hypoxia, etc.

Many fishermen are incensed about Marine Protected Areas, believing that we have a right ot fish anywhere. But come on fellas, be reasonable. Freshwater refuges have been around a long time and they enjoy wide support among fishermen. Why not in the ocean? Fishing regulations are often a haphazard and piecemeal effort to protect fish, and we all know the patchwork of regulations frequently fail to achieve their goals. Refuge areas are a common sense idea whose time has come.

MPAs work, and let's all rise about our personal interests and embrace the strong medicine needed to ensure that we give fish a chance in the non-pristine oceans of our future.

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

If there's something big, windy, and scary in your neighborhood, who you gonna call? Hurricanebusters!

Some scientists have an idea for weakening hurricanes. They hope to reduce hurricane-caused damage by cooling the ocean water ahead of a hurricane. This would work by pumping deep water to the surface. Even where the ocean surface is warm, cooler water is available just a few hundred feet down.

Since warm water makes hurricanes stronger, and cool water makes them weaker, everyone seems to agree that the theory is solid. But the hurricanebusters plan would be hard to implement. It would be tough to design, build, and deploy pumps that would keep working in a rough, stormy ocean. But maybe it's worth a try since just one hurricane can do enormous damage?

Experiments suggest that realistic levels of acidification may cause calcium carbonate to dissolve. Not a big deal? It is if you're an animal like a coral or a pteropod, with a calcium carbonate skeleton. Imagine having your bones dissolve, sort of like osteoporosis for corals.

Ocean acidification is caused by increases in carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels. Carbon dioxide dissolves in seawater and turns into carbonic acid, increasing acidity and (for you science geeks) lowering ocean pH. So just when we're all talking about global warming (or the myth of global warming) and it's harm (or benefits!), it seems we've been missing the boat, the real carbon dioxide threat may be ocean acidification.

These are some of the largest underwater dunes on Earth, formed by the powerful Golden Gate tidal currents that routinely exceed 5 miles per hour, thanks to lots of water rushing in and out of a narrow bay mouth.

Add in a westerly wind at 25 mph (not unusual) and you get the lovable and intense "washing machine" conditions great for windsurfing under the Golden Gate bridge.

The Oregon dead zone is now recognized as probably caused by people, despite learned opinion from a few years ago that it was a natural phenomenon.

Low oxygen water has crept into shallow waters this year, and the darn thing is spreading up the Washington coast. Crab fishermen have found dead crabs in their traps, and dead fish have floated up onto beaches.

If you've never seen the Oregon coast, this is not where you expect a dead zone. Rough and sometimes craggy, with open beaches and not a lot of shallow water, the ocean off Oregon is swept by fairly strong currents and whipped by waves even in the summer. The water is usually cold and few people live on the coast. Overall, this is not a typical recipe for a dead zone (more typical = shallow, enclosed areas with lots of nutrient runoff and fairly immobile water where plankton blooms can cook up, sizzle, and then rot into a stinky deadened broth).

Nobody would have believed it if told a decade ago that a human-caused dead zone would be wreaking havoc off the Oregon coast. It just ain't how Oregonians think about the wild coast. Thunder and tarnation.

BTW, for the record, the dead zones are called that not because everything dies. Some wicked slimy things thrive in so-called "dead zones," and what dies is just all the nice things that people like to eat.

About Me

I grew up with fishing and the ocean, became a scientist, and now I'm a conservationist. I work for Washington Environmental Council, but the opinions here are my own. Email me at blogfishx (at) gmail (dot) com or about Swim Around Bainbridge at swimbi (at) gmail (dot) com.